Conrad Moul - The Public Commons
The original Moul Townhouse stood to your right. It was the mirror image of the 215 Broadway townhouse behind you. By 1915, the Moul Family replaced it with the Neoclassical Revival style brick home designed by Dempwolf Architects of York, which you see before you now. Relatives of Conrad Moul still occupy this home.
The Public Commons was sold or rented by perpetual land leases to local industries such as foundries, distillers, and coal, lumber and hemp rope distributors. The public Farmers' Market building was erected in 1932 to move the outdoor market inside to improve sanitation.
The Fitz House, to the left, was the residence of the Water Wheel Foundry owner. During the Civil War, local oral history records that the Fitz family nursed a wounded Confederate soldier back to health, hiding him until he recovered and could be smuggled south to his family.
"You see those holes over there in the down spout on Auntie Creager's house? "Yes," I said. "And those small holes or impressions on the brick wall. (meaning north wall of his house) "Yes, I often wondered how those holes got there." "Well, they are bullet holes from soldiers guns, fired as they came in Abbotstown Street and then we all went down in the cellar for safety, until all danger was past." - Conrad Moul.
Marker is on Broadway (Pennsylvania Route 194) 0 miles north of Allewalt Avenue, on the left when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
